Having role models is human nature, and lifting up those who are brave, heroic, righteous, wise, creative, or witty as models to be copied is a common, almost instinctive, thing to do. Think of the people who are in the public eye: athletes, movie stars, business people, and more become examples of what others want to be or be like; they become examples to be emulated.

In the church, we have heroes of the faith — we call them saints — who provide wholesome examples of how life can be lived for God. Other great humanitarian figures — Albert Schweitzer, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi and others — give us prototypes of living life in its fullest sense.

Thirty-three years ago when I was in my 3rd semester of seminary, my homiletics professor told our class that trying to inspire people with “hero stories” was passé. He told me that citing the lives of great men and women didn’t inspire people to new heights; instead it made them feel inadequate. I never fully believed that, and I still don’t. Real role models are good and necessary.

Maybe I feel this way because, by nature and temperament, I am an historian. My mother always thought I should be a lawyer, but I know that if I were not in holy orders, I’d be teaching history at the University of Somewhere.

History provides lots of role models, but who should those role models be?

As a kid, I loved football. Growing up near Cleveland, Ohio my heroes played for the Browns. Jim Brown, Gary Collins, Leroy Kelly, and Frank Ryan were the football heroes of my youth who inspired me to try my hardest when the going got toughest and brought me to value fair play in competition.

Later, learning of Albert Einstein, Enrico Ferme, and Jonas Salk called me to work harder at math and science.

Watching men go into orbit and then walk on the moon – men like John Glenn and Neil Armstrong (both also from Ohio, as is Bishop Wolfe, I might add!) helped me see the world as full of great possibilities.

Learning to refinish furniture in my grandfather’s basement taught me patience and the love of fine work, well done.

Working in my father’s construction business taught me what a strong and resilient man he was and that hard work wouldn’t kill me.

But the most influential of all was reading and learning about the life of Christ, which made me want to center my life in God, like Jesus did.

Great people inspired me to greater effort.

It may not have been the same with you or others, but it worked for me. Perhaps heroes inspired me because I was a young. Not-yet-adults seem to see the best in life and, because they’re soaking up all that they can learn, are more inclined to assimilate and pattern themselves after the heroes of life.

By imitating heroes, children don’t just imitate actions; they also learn and appropriate the hero’s ideals and values. In many ways, heroes are an example of values in action, and kids take part of them into themselves. For good or ill.

Which brings us to the point of recognizing the Saint of the Church we honor this day: St. John “CHRY – sos - tom”. Or “Chry – SOS – tom” if you prefer . . . I’ve heard it pronounced both ways among the very learned of the Church. How we pronounce it, however, isn’t really as important as who he was.

CHRYsostom (or ChrySOStom) is not his family name – not his surname. It is an honorarium like the “Great” in Alexander the Great, or Pope Gregory the Great, or Kamehameha the Great.Interestingly enough (and as an aside), Wikipedia lists 127 persons who, in the span of history, have been given the honorarium “the Great” . . . and – because I know you’re wondering – yes! the list includes “The Great Gonzo” from the Muppets® Show.

But “Chrysostom” does not mean “the great”; it is an honorarium – a name given to commemorate, praise, and show esteem. “Chrysostom” is from Greek, and it means “golden-mouthed”. John became known as golden-mouthed due to his reputed eloquence and clarity of teaching and preaching.

Born about 354 in Antioch, Syria, he is one of the great saints of the Eastern Church. As a young man, he first responded to the call of desert monasticism, but after 6 years—with his health was severely impaired—he returned to Antioch. He was made a deacon in 381, and 5 years thereafter, in 386, he was ordained a presbyter.

In 397, he became Patriarch of Constantinople, but his episcopate was short and tumultuous. The Church was still newly come to its exalted place as the official religion of the Roman Empire — the Council of Nicaea had taken place just 72 years before (a mere heartbeat in the history of the Church). When he came to his cathedra, he continued his custom of living an ascetical life. This drew criticism from those who wanted the Church to display and use the trappings of power that had been handed to them. He knew the morality trap that power and riches posed for senior churchmen and chose to remain true to his austere, less-worldly practices.

Along the way, he managed to incur the wrath of the Empress Eudoxia, who believed that he had publicly called her a “Jezebel.” For this effrontery and for challenging the moral behavior of the members of the imperial court, he was twice exiled. He died during his second banishment, on September 14, 407, at the age of 53. Thirty-one years later, his remains were brought back to Constantinople, and were buried on January 27.

John was one of the greatest preachers in the history of the Church. People flocked to hear him. His eloquence was accompanied by an acute sensitivity to the needs of people. He saw preaching as an integral part of pastoral care, and as a medium of teaching. He warned that if a priest had no talent for preaching the Word, the souls of those in his charge “will fare no better than ships tossed in the storm.”

His sermons provide exceptional insights into the Church’s early liturgy, and especially into its eucharistic practices. He describes the liturgy as a glorious experience, in which all of heaven and earth join.

In many ways, he was a forerunner. His sermons emphasize the importance of lay participation in the Eucharist. To those who did not countenance lay people speaking out in the liturgy – believing the clergy alone should provide the responses to the celebrant – he wrote (and I paraphrase): “Why marvel that the people speak along with the priest at the altar? Don’t they join with the angels when they offer up sacred hymns?”

His treatise, Six Books on the Priesthood, is a classic manual on being a priest and on the demands placed on those who are entrusted with that holy office. The priest, he wrote, (and this is also true, I might add, of deacons) must be “dignified, but not haughty; awe-inspiring but kind; affable in [one’s] authority; impartial but courteous; humble but not servile; strong but gentle . . .”

And it goes on. Relentlessly on.

Just hearing what St. John of the Golden-Mouth shares about the kind of character qualities demanded of the clergy gives one pause . . . and also gives one cause to wonder, “Can I ever measure up?”

So that takes us back to the idea of role models. I would offer John Chrysostom as a role model for anyone preparing for ministry in any form. Here’s why.

He exemplifies dedication and perseverance.The Apostle Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, wrote: “Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

John Chrysostom may not have been right in everything he said or did, but he never walked away – never threw in the towel. He persevered. My conclusion is this: If he could show such dedication, it can be done. If it can be done, we can do it, too.

He exemplifies being people-centered. Paul, again: “Love is kind . . . It is not self-seeking.”

John cared for the poor and the outcast. He emphasized charitable giving and was concerned with the spiritual and temporal needs of the poor. He also spoke against abuse of wealth and personal property:

Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: "This is my body" is the same who said: "You saw me hungry and you gave me no food", and "Whatever you did to the least of my brothers you did also to me" . . . What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar as well. — from his treatise on the Gospel of Matthew

He exemplifies being unshakable and confident, yet humble and contrite in high office.“Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking . . . [it] rejoices in the truth.”

John called the Church – as C. S. Lewis would later say – to keep the main thing the main thing. He knew what he stood for, and more importantly for whom he stood – who he represented. To be Christ’s man was his whole aim, all his striving, his complete purpose.

He was an advocate for the people against the prerogatives of the clergy. It fascinates me how quickly the Church of the 4th century went from outlaw to outlandish. They had achieved bare toleration in many corners of the empire by Constantine’s ascension to the Imperial Throne in 306, but less than 100 years later — in a time when change came about ever so much more slowly than now — the Church had been established by the Emperor and had become a haven for riches and power and worldly ambition. That sea-change in the fortunes of the Church brought prestige and places of honor to the clergy, but it also brought with it heinous temptations to be what Christ never as he served God – to be, indeed, what he actively rejected.

Do you know that there was a time when “the Church” was defined as those in Holy Orders. Lay people were served by the Church but were not considered part of the Church. Isn’t that an interesting and disturbing distinction? We still experience a vestige of that on occasion today when someone might say – perhaps in speaking about a postulant or candidate – “Bob is going into the Church.”

St. John knew that the Father did not create his children to serve the Church. He knew that the opposite is in fact true; the Savior created the Church to serve God’s children.

John focused on the formation – the character building – of people and also the formation and ordering of community. These are core jobs of the priesthood. His preaching was about growing into Christ, being one with Christ. He wanted people to grow into the moral likeness and character of Christ and for the community of faith to reflect in the characteristics of its life the beloved community that was God’s dream.

Hear St. Paul again as he describes for us the kind of community God desires of us and for us: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul did not write this passage so we’d have a convenient scripture lesson for use at weddings. He wrote it to a community that was struggling with their common life, the Church in Corinth. They were fractured and factionalized. Paul wrote to re-center their community life in love. Calling them to hold love as their highest ethical standard. Extolling them to order their community life in love for one another – and not a love that was a mere cloying sentimentality, but a love that was incarnated . . . not in acrimony, anger, or angst . . . but in action and attitude and advocacy of one for the welfare of another.

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you do. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you love someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

John knew that this was the core of community as the Son intends it, as the Father dreamt it, as the Spirit empowers it to be.​Love.

If you do nothing else this academic year, here at BKSM, learn to love . . . in all the unnumbered, myriad possibilities of that word. That is part – maybe the main part – of being ready to lead in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

﻿﻿The Bishop Kemper School for Ministry is a collaborative venture of the Episcopal Dioceses of Kansas, West Missouri, Nebraska and Western Kansas.It offers classes and programs to educate people for church leadership in both lay and ordained vocations.